Sheriff, Oxford Superintendent urge stranger danger awareness

OXFORD – The Chenango County Sheriff’s Office is helping to educate both youths and adults on how to handle “stranger danger” incidents after police recently responded to a related complaint in Oxford.

On March 25, the Sheriff’s Office responded to a complaint involving two Oxford Middle School teens and a middle aged man.

Lt. Richard Cobb said the two girls were waiting for the morning school bus when a man pulled up in a vehicle and engaged them in conversation.

Sheriff Ernest R. Cutting said nothing criminal transpired during the encounter, but the brief exchange left the two girls feeling uncomfortable and they were compelled to walk away from the man, go back inside the home and notify their parents.

Cutting said police later identified the man and deputies contacted him over the incident.

“This individual who was unknown to the youths pulled up in his vehicle and began a random conversation, at one point asking the girls to come closer to his vehicle so he could ‘show them a story in a newspaper,’” said Cutting.